25/26 Match Week 15 Recap

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In Today’s CleanSheet:

• Results 🏟️

  • Current Situation📈📉

  • Quick Kicks ⚽

• Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥- World Cup Draw Table Hot Takes

• Off Island 🏝️ - European Leagues

• Best Bets 💰

Results 🏟️

Sorted Most Surprised to Least Surprised 🎁🎁

Current Situation 📈📉

Standings

Goals & Clean Sheets

How does the current 25/26 season compare to EPL averages for goals and clean sheets.

Goal Scorers

Haaland (City) leads with 15 on the season, Thiago (B’ford) is second with 11 and Welbeck (BHA) and Mateta (Palace) third with 7.

Quick Kicks ⚽

• Mo Salah. Big drama brewing in Liverpool as Mo Salah spoke his mind after their last draw. Salah will be heading to the African Cup of Nations. Will be interesting to see what Liverpool does.

  • “I said many times I had a good relationship with the manager… after the sudden we don’t have any relationship. I don’t know why.”

  • “I’m sitting on the bench, I don’t know why. I think it’s very clear someone wants me to take all the blame.”

  • “I feel like I’m being thrown under the bus.”

  • “It’s not acceptable for me. I don’t know why this is happening for me. I don’t get it.”

  • “I have done so much for this club. I don’t have to go everyday fighting for my position because I earned it. I’m not bigger than anyone.”

• Inter Miami Wins MLS. Miami beat Vancouver to win the MLS title, and another title for Messi.

  • WATCH THIS ASSIST by Messi to put the match away 3-1.

Hot Topic 🔥🔥🔥

The World Cup Draw is the Hot Topic of the week.

So many storylines, so much drama about the draw AND the actual draw itself.

“Not only is it going to be the biggest World Cup in history. Not only is it going to be the biggest sporting event in history, but I think it’s going to be the biggest cultural event in history.” - Alexi Lalas

Reaction to the Draw

• GREAT DRAW for the USMNT, that is the general reaction. While Paraguay and Australia are excellent teams the US did just recently play them and have some familiarity and there were teams in those pots the consensus was saying teams would want to avoid - Morocco, Colombia, Finland (Haaland), Ghana, Senegal, Japan - just a couple talked about as being a pot 2/3 team to avoid.

• One of these 4 teams will join the US, Australia and Paraguay in the Group - Slovakia/Kosovo/Turkey/Romania.

  • Current odds to win the group - USA +150, Paraguay +330, Australia +500, Turkey +500, Slovakia +750, Romania +2000, Kosovo +2000.

• VERY POSSIBLE Australia and Paraguay are thrilled to be in the USMNT group.

• One of these 4 teams will be added to Group B - Italy, Northern Ireland, Wales, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Could see Italy being the team to get in and be a very difficult out for Canada, Switzerland and Qatar.

• This is the first year with 48 teams in the tournament. This is going to make the groups “less interesting” in that there will be some bigger mismatches, BUT it may make the round of 32 very interesting.

• Group I, F and Group L seem to be the toughest on paper.

Reaction to the “pageantry” of the Draw Show

• Cheezy. On a Friday afternoon you have “stiff” soccer executives and former players among several thousand people in the Kennedy Center who have to sit through performances by star artists who are trying to pump up the atmosphere. Just doesn’t work. Everyone there just wanted to see who was going into what groups.

• To those saying, “this was the worst Draw event of all time”, will just say you are wrong. All of these draws and events like this have been the same.

• Aside from seeing the teams drawn - this performance from Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma was brilliant! and the second best part of the show.

• The draw started at 11am cst, the first ball was not drawn until well after 12 cst.

Hydration, and other stupid topics

• It was announced, like the WC in Qatar, there will be “water breaks” in the middle of the 1H and 2H of matches. How hot is it going to be in the US in the summer? And of course, instead of doing a water break if a match happens to be in a hot climate they will be doing water breaks at ALL matches regardless of where, you know, for fairness.

  • It has been pointed out that this now means soccer in the US is just like football, 4 quarters and commercials added during the time outs.

  • The first hydration breaks at a World Cup were in 2014 when Mexico played Netherlands.

  • No word if there will be oxygen breaks for the teams playing at altitude.

FIFA & Politics, Peace World Prize

• The first ever FIFA Peace Prize was handed out during the ceremony and President Trump of the USA was its first recipient.

• The reaction was priceless, it was hard to stop laughing.

• The reaction against FIFA President was quick - Gianni Infantino has been taking a lot of heat for how FIFA is handling tickets, peace prize, the list goes on. Short story, this happens every world cup regardless of who is hosting.

• Attending the World Cup - YES, you can head to the US to catch a match, in fact there will be an expedited Visa process for those with tickets.

Trump

• Just like everything else outside of the Soccer world, people have opinions about Trump one way or another.

• Football v Soccer. Trump said he thinks the US should reconsider calling US Football “Football” and that Soccer is really Football. It got the reaction you would expect, non stop talk about it for a week.

• Another laughable moment - YMCA to close out the show - Village People still rocking it on stage.

• One thing is for sure - Trump is all in on the World Cup and has been championing the sport and the USA.

How to Actually Do The Draw

• FIFA should stop using European based “production” teams and leverage a new company.

• Run the Draw like the NFL Draft. Put it in a location where you can have 100-500k fans, fans from each country, who will cheer and go nuts when their team talked about and picked.

• Cut the “music” portion to 1-2 songs and do 2-3 minutes on each team that has qualified. They did a short video with each qualified team shown but this draw is about those teams, spend the first hour talking about the teams and the last hour it the draw.

Off Island 🏝️

Top European Leagues

Best Bets 💰

Season - UP $44

DOWN $19

• L ($34) - Bournemouth v Chelsea Over 2.5 goals AND Both Teams To Score -170. $34

• L ($28) - Tottenham v Brentford Over 2.5 goals AND Both Teams To Score -142. $28

• L ($10) - City v Sunderland to score 4 OR 5 total goals +177. $10

• L ($10) - City v Sunderland to score 6+ goals +580. $10

• W $25 - BHA to score more goals in 2H than 1H +128. $20

• W $70 - Man United to Win AND Mbeumo to Score +350. $20

• W $35 - Palace to Win at FFC +177. $20

• L ($25) - Newcastle to Win v Burnley by 2+ goals -125. $25

• W $24 - Everton to Win v Forest +119. $20

• L ($20) - Leeds to Win v Liverpool +315. $20

• L ($10) - Sunderland to Win at City +1075. $10

• L ($1) - Sunderland, Leeds, Newcastle to Win +5042. $1

• L ($10) - BHA, City, Newcastle to Win +146. $10

• L ($10) - Thiago (Brentford) to score +118. $10

• L ($10) - Watkins (Villa) to score +226. $10

• L ($5) - Thiago, Watkins to score +627. $5